


partners in crime (or: the five year shoot out on wick street)

by FrankIin



Category: Call the Midwife
Genre: F/F, Long drawn out metaphors, Patsy comes out and rewrites the rest of the show
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-05
Updated: 2021-02-05
Packaged: 2021-03-17 06:47:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,943
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29221197
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FrankIin/pseuds/FrankIin
Summary: (“Tell me, Busby, we have the money, and the car, what else can we do?”“Anything. That’s the point of it all, Pats. We can do anything.”)in which, after delia’s accident, patsy tells trixie everything and being on the run never sounded so perfect.
Relationships: Delia Busby/Patsy Mount
Comments: 3
Kudos: 31





	partners in crime (or: the five year shoot out on wick street)

**Author's Note:**

> tw // intrusive thoughts, period-typical homophobic, very very brief idealisation of suicide

**partners in crime**

**(or: the five year shoot out on wick street)**

  
  


**I**.

_**sirens in bienville parish, louisiana.** _

  
  
  
  
  
  


_“They call them cold-blooded killers; they say they are heartless and mean. But I say this with pride that I once knew Clyde, when he was honest and upright and clean.”_  
(the story of bonnie and clyde, 1934. stanza: 4; lines: 1-4)

  
  
  
  


Sometimes in the circumstance of an illicit affair, one would do well to find joy in the criminality of it all.

When they’d settled out of the newness of their liaison, grown comfortable, accustomed to the limitations and expectations of it all, Delia had jested on the great bank robbery of it all. Like they were committing some fantastic heist, secret love and all of that. 

The nicknames came somewhere around their fifth month together, when they’d missed curfew and were greeted by the deadbolt closure of the Nurse’s Home entrance. And back door. And even the covert side door that Sarah had advised them on. 

( _“We’re taking advice from Sarah the Slut?”_

_“You’re not allowed to wax judgement on people’s preferences, Pats, pull yourself together.”)_

Patsy had stared up at the door with her head cocked to the left. Delia, beside her, had shivered. And then Patsy was plucking pins from her hair and kneeling in front of the lock. 

It clicked open not two minutes later. 

_(“Learn that in a bank robbery, Clyde?”_

_“Of course, Bonnie. I’m fantastic at getting into where I shouldn’t.”)_

And thus they were, as fate decided, Bonnie and Clyde. Trapped in a true romance, ever afraid of shackles, committing the most innocuous heist of all time. Coffee dates were felonies, kisses were stab wounds, and making love became the sweet symphony of machine gun fire. It didn’t matter though, the thrill of it all, Patsy always had one foot on the pedal of the getaway car and Delia kept them on the run.

Nothing could touch them. Not the law, the police, nothing. They were that good. 

They were flying.

They were invincible. 

Until they weren’t. 

  
  
  


-

Patsy stews at the window of her old bedroom, cigarette burning down with a mere cry for attention. She doesn’t smoke it. Instead, she stares at the little square, as Phyllis’ car trundles back in. The headlights flick off. 

_THWACK. THWACK. BANG. And Delia hit the dirt._

The front door opens. Patsy hears it. And Delia hit the dirt. She stubs her cigarette out against the window pane. Will clear up the ash later. In the pocket of her trousers, Delia’s photograph resides. 

_THWACK. TWACK. BANG._

Downstairs, she lingers on the stairs as Phyllis removes her coat, scarf, cap. Damn near gives her a heart attack if the jolt Phyllis gives in any indication. Phyllis settles, rubs her hands together. 

“They got to the hospital alright, lass,” Phyllis says softly. 

She’d offered, after a phone call with them, to pick the Busby’s up from the train station in her car and take them to the hospital. It was the least she could offer, she’d said. Patsy had squeezed her own wrists like the foreboding shackles to force herself not to plead along. 

“Mrs Busby has advised you’d be better visiting in the allotted hours tomorrow, perhaps young Nurse Busby will be awake by then.”

“She isn’t awake? That isn’t--That could mean an all manner of things. She’ll have to have--” Patsy starts, reaching for her coat. She gets as far as pulling her left arm through it. 

Phyllis places her hand in the crease of her elbow. 

“Nurse Crane.”

“You need to rest,” Phyllis orders. “Do so however you wish, but you need to rest. You’ve been through enough today, Patsy.”

The familiarism is furthered by the scotch bottle from Phyllis’ bag that presses into her hand. 

“Don’t drink it all, but I reckon you’ll need a little help to drop off tonight,” Phyllis says, gentle. “Nurse Franklin is on call, take all the time you need.”

Patsy tenses her jaw, feels the joint pop at her cheekbone.

Phyllis watches.

“I know the difficulty of a best friend in peril, Patsy,” She says, allusive, avoidant. “To bed with you.”

  
  


-

  
  


Criminal mindset, Patsy had never considered she’d be stranded alone to clean up a crime scene. The pitiful flowers, limp as her, settled in the god-awful jug as Patsy had closed the door for the last time on what was supposed to be their Ontario. Salvation. Freedom. Instead, however, on the long walk back to Nonnatus -- not entirely that long, but she simply chose to avoid a certain street -- bleach gnawed at the skin of her fingertips, burning away her identity as she herself melts into nothing. 

Despair is an awful poet.

Finally up the steps, dropped in her old bed, Patsy screams into the pillow until Trixie comes home. 

When she does, grief will out, Patsy cocks her revolver and tells Trixie everything. 

  
  


-

  
  
  


The air is stagnant. Delia is long gone and Patsy’s suitcase is still by the door. Trixie’s chest heaves from the force of her yelling. Sister Julienne’s office has never felt quite so cold. 

The slap had come as a shock. Another shot back. The words tore through her skin, broke her down. Trixie told her she’d never live with a liar again. 

_Again_ thrums in her ears. 

She’d taken off to Sister Julienne, Trixie, and barged into the meeting she’d been having with Sister Evangelina. Confessed all of Patsy’s sins and declared she wasn’t going to accept her presence any more. 

Sister Evangelina had grown dark. 

Sister Julienne had crossed her hands on her desk. 

Patsy had thought of grabbing the letter opener on Sister Julienne’s desk and piercing her own eyeballs. 

She didn’t. 

Sister Julienne clears her throat. 

“The attic, I’ll have Fred fix the roof as soon as possible,” Sister Julienne says with that calm, pleasant smile. “If you don’t mind sleeping on the couch in the sitting room for a night or two, Nurse Mount.”

A salvation? A mole? A woman on the inside? Patsy doesn’t waste her time with the considerations. Focuses her energies on keeping upright as grief and relief and an all manner of things rip through her. 

She nods, lip clamped her teeth, knees shaking. 

At that, Sister Evangelina looks between them all, “Sister Julienne, you can’t _seriously_ be considering—“

“With no confession from Nurse Mount and no evidence,” Sister Julienne says, palms flat on the desk. “There is only hearsay and I am not losing one of my best nurses on hearsay.”

Trixie, hands on her hips, barks, “She _confessed_ to me! She’s a—“

“Nurse Franklin,” Sister Julienne interrupts. “Might it be time for you to return to the clinical room? And inform Nurse Crane and Nurse Gilbert of Nurse Mount’s move back here.” 

A pause. 

“And _only_ that.”

Trixie halts. And then leaves. 

Patsy does not expect her to keep her confessions to herself.

“I can look for employment else—“ Patsy starts. 

But she can’t leave Poplar. She can’t. One can’t drive an empty getaway car, it isn’t done. 

“Or at the very least, I can save to move elsewhere on my own. Or-Or finally break into whatever my father has put aside for me. I wouldn’t want to be the course of grief.”

Sister Evangelina snorts, “Bit too late for that.”

“Nurse Mount, Patsy,” Sister Julienne softens. “As I said, I have no reason to believe the allegations from Nurse Franklin are true, in lieu of any actual evidence or a confession. Therefore, I also have no reason to want you to leave—“

“You know it’s true,” Sister Evangelina spits. “We _always_ said there was something different about—“

“And we discovered that to be the...circumstances of her childhood,” Sister Julienne replies, curt. “I should remind you that assumptions aren’t reason to cast stones, Sister, or everyone would be walking with many wounds.”

Patsy glances between them. In her pocket, absconded from the vaults of the hospital room, Delia’s rings burns. 

“What if it—“

“Patsy,” Sister Julienne says firmly. 

And she knows. But if she doesn’t hear it then...

“ _Fine_ ,” Sister Evangelina huffs. “But she’s to be supervised by one of us or Nurse Crane. I’m not having her alone with a woman, not seeing all of—“

“I assure you I’ve never thought to—“

“Because it’s not true,” Sister Julienne declares. And that’s final. 

She gestures for them to leave.

  
  
  
  


-

_(“Can you keep a secret?” Delia asks with a glint in her eye._

_Patsy smirks, “A challenge, Busby?”_

_Delia slides the deck of red-backed cards to her._

_“Ah yes, solitaire - truly the most illicit of all possibilities.”_

_Delia shoves her arm._

_“Keep hold of ‘em, Clyde, I’m serious. They’re very important.”_

_“I shall treat them as though they’re the Crown Jewels.”_

_“Good. Risked life and limb for those.”_

_“Delia?”_

_“Yes?”_

_“Where’s the ten of clubs?”_

_”Missing. Presumed dead. She might show up soon but the Dallas PD don’t have much stock in it.”)_

  
  
  


-

  
  
  


Patsy’s attic hardly gets any sunlight. The small window is layered with grime but can’t bring herself to retrieve the bucket and bleach. She likes it just fine, the darkness. It brings sleep and with sleep comes Delia and a world of dancing in the street like people do. Like lovers do. 

She only leaves at the call of the telephone or for her daily rounds. Food is grabbed and brought up. Perhaps she’ll be out, at the docks with a cone of chips or in one of the cafes just further West with a sandwich or pastry. Never cake. 

No one visits. 

Patsy’s understanding of a discretion doesn’t translate here for that reason. So she holds onto Delia’s things, tidies away her boxes in the corner of her room, frames her picture on the nightstand made of her books. The ring sits in front. 

The attic is cold but it’s not the coldest prison she’s ever lived in. It’s morbidly comforting almost, how similar it is to there. She wakes cold with her family dead and her father worlds away, puts on her uniform to work, eats, back to bed. The only difference is the fences are in her head and no one speaks Japanese. Oh and she’s truly alone now. No one else in the pitiful hut she calls home. It’s just her. 

Patsy doesn’t sleep under the blanket because the nightmares come harder if she’s restrained like that. Instead she shivers on top of it, clutching Delia’s yellow cardigan and thinking about how she thought she got away with it. 

The world's most notorious criminal: a lover. 

Only the getaway car stalled and Bonnie got her brains blown out, leaving Clyde to rot in solitude. 

She reads Delia’s books, writes letters addressed to the fire, and mostly dreams of a large house with a garden and a dog. Somewhere far away but never too far. Their own little Ontario. She dreams of dancing with Trixie like old times, of lacing Barbara’s tizer with just a tot of Fred’s secret vodka. 

Patsy no longer exists outside of her own head. 

The way it was always supposed to be.

Dreaming was all she had once, it’s almost a welcome homecoming.

She falls asleep with a red-backed playing card in her hands.

  
  
  


-

  
  
  


_(“Have you ever...?”_

_“Danced with the devil in the moonlit night?”_

_Patsy rolls her eyes, “Deels.”_

_“It’s a metaphor. And I have. Once. You?”_

_“Several.”_

_“You’re a dark house, Clyde.”_

_“It was boarding school, Delia, everyone knows what happens at boarding schools.”_

_“Sorry, us common folk don’t know all the upper class rumours.”_

_“Do you want me to take my dress off this evening or shall I just leave?”_

_“You wouldn’t dare.”_

_“No?”_

_“Shoot your shot.”_

_“I love you too, Bonnie.”)_

  
  
  
  


-

  
  
  
  


Salvation comes in the form of Barbara Gilbert because of course it fucking does. 

The vicar’s daughter doesn’t bring a Bible or a rosary like the nuns in school had done. Instead she brings Earl Grey tea and absconded Custard Creams. The good kind. The Sunday Best kind. 

She knocks, ignores silence, and sits directly besides Patsy in her bed. Watches, Barbara does, as Patsy finishes the last drop of tea. 

“Thank you,” Patsy says, voice still hoarse. 

Barbara smiles, crumbs of biscuits on her lips, “You’re my friend, Patsy, I’d be awfully upset if you’d forgotten that.”

And Patsy only ever cries on certain anniversaries but lately she’s been on the edge so much that she’s bawling in Barbara’s lap before she even finishes speaking. 

Patsy has never believed in God, but she’d build a church for Barbara Gilbert

  
  
  
  


-

  
  
  
  


In Trixie’s room, with Barbara now the inhabitant of Patsy’s old bed, the atmosphere is stilted.

“Why do you go up there?”

Ash hits the tray with Barbara’s heart. 

“She’s our—She’s one of my _best_ friends, Trixie,” Barbara says with earnest. “The person she loves was wounded terribly, her family are dead—“

“She still has a father.”

“—And everyone else here hates her,” Barbara wraps her arms around herself. “She must be so terribly lonely but I’m not going to let her feel alone on account of rumours.”

Trixie inhales her cigarette, “They’re not rumours.”

“Why should it matter? Patsy loves Delia, that doesn’t make her any less... _Patsy_.”

“It’s criminal.”

“It isn’t!” Barbara retorts. “It’s just _love_. It’s how Patsy was born to love.”

Trixie shakes her head, “Something went wrong. It’s not right, Barbara, you can’t—“

A gentle, ghost of a knock on the door interrupts. 

Barbara answers quickly. 

Patsy stands, part relieved at Babs’ presence, absolutely nervous at Trixie’s narrowed stare. 

“I...Would either of you—perhaps, have a spare tampon? I hadn’t thought to replace my stock in the bathroom lately and, well, Mother Nature decided to surprise me.” 

Barbara shakes her head, “Towels for me, I’m afraid.”

Patsy drags her eyes to Trixie. 

It’s a long moment. Barbara’s palm grows clammy on the door. Trixie’s sobranie burns down. Patsy physically shakes. 

Trixie moves to the side table, between her and Barbara’s beds, and withdraws a handful of tampons. She thrusts them to Barbara to pass on. 

“I’d like a replacement promptly, Nurse Mount.” 

And then she’s sitting on her bed, back to Patsy. Doesn’t catch the tears in Patsy’s eyes. 

“Of course. Thank you,” she responds, hoarse. 

Barbara squeezes her arm before closing the door, crying herself. 

“Trixie, it’s _Patsy_ ” She pleads. “She’s so afraid and sad and you’re so mad and sad and I don’t know what I’m supposed to—“

“Turn the lights out, will you Barbara? It’s time I got some sleep.”

Trixie stubs her cigarette out.

Barbara turns out the lights. 

But instead of moving to her own bed, she enters the hall intent on going to the attic, intent on waiting and making sure Patsy is okay, intent on—

Phyllis’ door opens. Her head pops out and her eyes soften insurmountably at the sight of Barbara. 

Barbara just about makes it to her arms before the sobs wracked her body to the ground.

  
  
  


-

  
  


It’s not been a month. December is around the corner. Sister Julienne has forbade any more exclusion from dinners. 

So Patsy sits. Back ram-rod straight, watches Phyllis turn her fork over her fingers. Thinks about what the prongs in her eyes would feel like. 

Doesn’t hear the conversation until it becomes of her. 

“They did another honey trap last night,” Sister Winifred says shamelessly. “Another man arrested for moral indecency.”

Patsy stiffens. Thinks of the dirt between her toes. 

“Sister—“ Phyllis starts. 

“I must say, Sister Julienne,” Sister Evangelina throws in, sparing the glance towards Patsy. “It is all a bit...risky to keep...when there's such a crackdown on behaviours like this.”

“There’s no illegality happening here,” Sister Julienne replies, calm, yet sharp. 

Barbara sips her juice, eyes boring into the side of Patsy’s head. Trixie stays silent. 

The bread roll tastes like the cockroaches the monsoon season brought in. 

“But what of moral illegality? Shouldn't the mother’s have a right to know if one of their nurses is a _bulldagger_?” Sister Evangelina presses. 

Patsy drops her bread roll, stands abruptly. Thinks of the laughter and yellow rotted teeth. 

Without a word, she retreats upstairs, Barbara bounding after her. 

Phyllis sets her cutlery down. 

“Really, Sister? Don't you think that term is a little offensive?” Phyllis snaps. 

“What's offensive is one of our midwives spending her days looking at women’s genitalia and—“

“Yes, I’m sure Nurse Mount finds blood-ridden, stained, torn apart vaginas _utterly_ irresistible,” Phyllis retorts with that air of sarcasm. “I can’t say I understand it, but I know that Nurse Mount is a damn good midwife, and a consummate professional at all times. I believe she can distance her personal life from her work and so does Sister Julienne, which is why she’s still here.”

A silence descends as Sister Evangelina huffs. 

Trixie chews her food. 

“Magnets only attract when both sides pull towards each other,” Sister Monica Joan declares. “Bodies are much the same. Hearts even more so.”

Disregarding her, Sister Winifred snipes, “They should have _killed_ her in that camp.”

  
  
  


-

  
  
  
  


_“Pats, slow down, we’re not war effort rationing, you can take your time with your food.”_

_Patsy stills, chewing ungracefully on the large chunk of sandwich she’d bitten into. Swallows hard._

_“Sorry. I forgot my manners, I’m famished.”_

_“It’s fine,” Delia smirks, humoured. “I just expected a little more poise.”_

_They continue eating, Patsy nibbling demurely now. Conversation is stilted until Patsy says:_

_“We didn’t ration. My family. We...I’ve never actually seen one of those little books.”_

_Delia, for all her calmness, has the audacity to look irritated by the statement. And Patsy hastens to tack on:_

_“Because we were in Singapore. Um,” Patsy plays with the fork beside her plate. Untouched. She hates the feel of cutlery, how chunky it feels in her hands. How heavy. “In our home, that’s where I...I lived. Um. For a while.”_

_Delia stops eating._

_“I’d just turned nine, actually. It was nearly Christmas. Not that those in Singapore celebrate it like we do but mum always made sure to have some sort of tree for my sister and I to unwrap presents under.” Patsy bit her lip. “Only that—that year mum hadn’t got the tree yet. And then the...Japanese came and, well. It was a big house. They burned it down. Shipped us to the—the new places they’d built on the outskirts of town. Tall fences. Little huts. Guns and knives and—and these little things, like sharp metal stars, that they’d throw at us just to see what would happen. They laughed a lot. When they made us fight over food or—or clothing. Had these big mouths with awful teeth. And they would sit and...they’d eat everything you could think off. The vegetables that we’d grown, steaks and pork chops and cake and chocolate. They always had chocolate. They’d throw a square, maybe, and watch us claw each other for just a——“_

_“Stop.”_

_Patsy hadn’t been looking as she spoke. Kept her eyes fixated on the table. Now, however, she glances at Delia. Poor, sweet, little Delia who is holding back sobs as tears leak down her cheeks._

  
  
  
  


-

  
  
  
  


Patsy’s attic is a mess, frankly. Barbara hadn’t quite expected her to be capable of such disarray but stacks of boxes, books, and clutter contradict this. The bed is old, rickety, and the uneven table made of books beside it bears a lamp with a tattered shade. A framed photograph of Delia sits on it, with a ring on a chain just in front. 

What Barbara infers to be Delia’s boxes sit beside the wardrobe, the top box open and jumpers pooling out. One of these jumpers is in the bed. Unmade, sheets tangled. Patsy sleeps with it, Barbara knows. And when Delia’s scent fades from that, she’ll take another from the box.

The only order in this room at all is the carefully pressed uniform hanging on her wardrobe door. 

Perched on the side of the bed, curled on herself, Patsy smokes a cigarette with shaking hands. 

“I don’t know why Sister Evangelina would say that word.”

“Because everyone thinks that word when they look at me.”

“I don’t.”

“You should,” Patsy taps ash onto the floor.

“I _won’t_ ,” Barbara says firmly. 

She sits besides Patsy, holds the ashtray for her. 

Patsy shakes her head and breaths out long streams of smoke. 

“I have four older sisters,” Barbara states. “Five if you count my step-sister. Do you _really_ think that I’ve never met a woman like you before?”

Patsy takes pause, turning to Barbara with a raised eyebrow, “You mean to say?”

Barbara nods, “Mary. She’s a school teacher so, of course, doesn’t share it with most. But she is. She told me the Christmas before I left for London, just before she went back to the States. Provincetown, Massachusetts.”

“Hm,” Patsy considers, smiling despite herself. 

“She isn’t dating anyone,” Barbara continues. “But she _does_ fancy Rita Hayworth quite a bit. I think she’d like you.”

Patsy barks a laugh, “I’m hardly a silver screen starlet.”

“Still...”

Patsy shakes her head, eyes cast to Delia’s portrait, “I love women, Barbara. But I love her most of all.”

“Have you heard anything? From Wales?”

“No. I know I shouldn’t...continue like this,” She looks around shamefully. “I’ve been alone before. I just...I’m not so used to it anymore. I don’t know how to exist without her. Especially with everyone...” Patsy sighs. “She was so hopeful that one day we’d be able to...But we won’t. I know we won’t. Not so long as attitudes like Trixie’s, Sister Evangelina’s persist.”

“Trixie doesn’t--” Barbara stops herself to sigh. She won’t lie to Patsy. “I didn’t think she’d be like that.”

“I told her once that you never forget the dreadful cruelty that man is capable of,” Patsy says. Ash on the floor. Tap. “It seems in my ignorance, I did as such.”

“You have me,” Barbara smiles. Her arm wraps around Patsy’s shoulders. “You will always have me.”

On the bedside table, the photograph — Delia with her hands clasped together, long index fingers pointing out like a pistol — watches the embrace.

-

  
  
  
  


_(“Shall we go somewhere Pats?”_

_“Where?”_

_“Anywhere. Take the money, steal the keys, run off in a getaway car.”_

_“Across the border? To Ontario?”_

_“Your American accent needs work.”_

_“And so does your English.”_

_“Piss off, Mount.”_

_“Tell me, Busby, we have the money, and the car, what else can we do?”_

_“Anything. That’s the point of it all, Clyde. We can do anything.”)_

  
  


-

  
  
  


“Where’s Nurse Mount?”

“Haven’t seen her since dinner time.”

“She’s on call, she should be—” Phyllis pauses. Spots the red-backed playing card sitting by the telephone. Squints. Picks it up. “Sister Winifred, cover the phone.”

  
  
  


-

  
  
  


“You’re terribly difficult to track down, lass,” Phyllis says

Patsy grips the railing, “With good reason.”

“It’ll pass, Patsy. I promise you, it will pass.”

“In my nightmares of this, I lost everyone but it didn’t matter that much because...But it seems to be a lot worse than I ever could have dreamed.”

“Life has a way of showing us darkness beyond our mind’s comprehension - I don’t think I need to remind you of that.”

“It keeps happening, Phyllis. I keep being imprisoned when I haven’t done anything wrong, have I?”

She squeezes the rail once more. Feels the paint flake off in her palm. 

“You’re not a criminal, Patsy.”

Phyllis hands her the ten of clubs. 

In the car home, Patsy shivers. 

Says: “For my birthday, I thought I might buy a gun.”

Phyllis only tightens her hold on the steering wheel. 

  
  
  
  
  
  


**end of part one.**

  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> i’d love your thoughts on this! it’s a little different to my usual tone but i’m really enjoying it. thank u so much for reading 💞💖
> 
> parts two and three coming this weekend 😌


End file.
